Micah 3
JPS TaNaKH 1917
Chapter overview
Micah condemns rulers who should know justice but instead exploit the people, using graphic metaphors for their cruelty. Prophets tailor messages to payment, and judges, priests, and prophets serve for gain while claiming security. Empowered to speak truth, Micah announces that Zion will become ruins.
Corrupt LeadershipBriberyFalse ProphecyJustice
1And I said: Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice?
2Who hate the good, and love the evil; who rob their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
3Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones; yea, they chop them in pieces, as that which is in the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
4Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but He will not answer them; yea, He will hide His face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.
5Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people to err; that cry: 'Peace', when their teeth have any thing to bite; and whoso putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:
6Therefore it shall be night unto you, that ye shall have no vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.
7And the seers shall be put to shame, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their upper lips; for there shall be no answer of God.
8But I truly am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of justice, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
9Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor justice, and pervert all equity;
10That build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say: 'Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No evil shall come upon us'?
12Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
JPS TaNaKH 1917 — Public Domain. Where these translations come from.